Day at the beach

Editor's Note: Welcome to our annual summer series. This year, we asked readers to tell us about their favorite beach destinations within driving distance, since summer in southeastern Connecticut wouldn't be complete without a day at the beach.

East Lyme ― Once the school year ends, Robin Soule transitions from her life as a kindergarten teacher at Flanders Elementary School to a summer vacationer at McCook Point Beach in the village of Niantic.

A favorite spot for many residents and visitors, McCook Point Park and Beach overlooks Niantic Bay and offers a variety of amenities on 21 acres of land, including access to two beaches ― McCook Point Beach and Hole-in-the-Wall Beach ― which surround a lush bluff point at 40 feet above sea level.

On the grassy grounds shaded by copper beech trees, there is a playground, a pavilion and a band shell, as well as picnic tables and benches.

Family connections

For Soule, spending summers at the beach has been about connecting with family and history.

Her family’s summer cottage, which sits next door to McCook Beach, was acquired by her great grandparents in 1910.

“Clearly, I have a thing about sentimental real estate,” said Soule, 63. Her family moved to Niantic from Lake Placid, N.Y., when she was a year old so they could enjoy more time at the cottage, which she now shares with her two cousins and their families.

“Coming back, it’s like an ancestral hug,” Soule added.

She recalled the stories about her father Colin Soule, born in 1911, who later became First Commodore and one of the founders of the Niantic Bay Yacht Club. She said he likely took his early steps as a toddler on the cottage’s deck that overlooks Niantic Bay, the same deck on which she took her first steps as a one-year-old.

Soule said she loves “having my kids here, hearing their grandpa’s stories even though they never met him.”

The cottage has afforded her family a front row seat to the changing landscape of McCook’s Park and Beach and the comings and goings of its visitors throughout the decades.

Images of family ancestors enjoying summers at the beach are displayed in framed photos and an old family album at the cottage.

Included in the mix is a collection of postcards showing artwork of the land where McCook Point Park and Beach are now situated before it was deeded to the town of East Lyme by the McCook family in 1953.

McCook history

According to the East Lyme Historical Society, the Rev. John James McCook built the summer home in 1869 to bring his eldest son, who was ill, to the shoreline at his doctor’s advice. Described as welcoming to the Niantic public, the McCooks also built a chapel on the land. They offered their Episcopal services to anyone and allowed townspeople to enjoy their property.

Just behind the spot where the beach’s restroom facilities now stand, there once stood the White Beach House, a structure built by Captain James V. Luce in 1892 that became a high-end hotel and later became the original Seaside Tuberculosis Sanitarium that served afflicted children in 1918. The sanitarium moved to a larger space in Waterford by 1934. The building was demolished and eventually incorporated into the town’s McCook Point Park and Beach.

Going back thousands of years further, McCook Point Park and Beach also has ancestral connections with the Nehantic tribe. It was part of a 300-acre Nehantic reservation built in 1671 that served as sacred burial grounds for at least 450 Nehantics.

In October 2021, the Nehantic Nation celebrated Indigenous Peoples Day at McCook Point Park for the first time on its ancestral land since the tribe was declared extinct by the state in 1870.

East Lyme’s Parks and Recreation Department alsoi nstalled three signs near the park’s gate with information about the Nehantic tribe’s history and their people.

Beach friends

Beach acquaintances often become good friends as the years pass.

“There’s a woman who comes just about every day with various grandchildren,” Soule said. “And there are a lot of people who sit in the same spot, who’ve been coming for years.”

Teri Smith, an East Lyme resident for 36 years, drives just five minutes to McCook Beach daily to “walk the beach and have a little conversation with God.”

Smith said her family has had a lot of celebrations “up on top” at the bluff. They’ve celebrated graduations and birthdays with cookouts in the picnic area of the park. She remembered “a really nice guy” named Frank Egan who used to help sweep the walkway, hang a thermometer in the water and then let her and 15 other moms with kids know the water’s temperature.

Athena Cone, 81, a lifelong East Lyme resident, has made a habit for the past 20 years of hanging out with other townspeople at McCook Beach in the evenings when it was cooler out and the attendant is no longer at the gate.

“It’s a marvelous on-going group. Some are retired, some are not,” Cone said. “People would see us and start talking. They would come back another night.”

Soule said McCook Beach traditions include the kids swimming to the raft or climbing the rocks, her children’s middle-school beach dances sponsored by the town in the 2000s and more recently, the high school’s drug-and-alcohol-free party for graduating seniors.

Special features

Heidi Bruno of East Lyme visits McCook with her teenage kids about three times per week in the summer and likes that her kids can take a walk through the park and Hole-in-the-Wall Beach to get to Main Street for food.

Phyllis Lawrence, Janice Johnson, and Linda Blais, all East Lyme residents who worked together for many years, regularly enjoy listening to summer concerts. They love the bath house showers and the convenience of the park right next door. Sometimes they order pizza and have it delivered right to the beach.

Charlie and Susan Caron fell in love with the proximity to the water when Charlie worked at Millstone Power Station in Waterford. After he retired in 2017, they decided to move to East Lyme. They prefer to watch the bands from the bluff, seated at their own camping chairs with built-in side tables, where they can eat their dinner away from the crowd and look out at the bay and the horizon.

IF you go:

Beach hours are from 8:00 a.m.-8:30 p.m, Resident Season Pass $ 45.00, $20 for seniors; $10 for residents with Handicap Pass. Non-Resident Season Pass $175.00. Resident day pass $15; non-resident pass weekdays $40; $50 on weekends. A weekly visitor pass is $100.

For information: https://eltownhall.com/government/departments/parks-recreation/beach-pass-information/